Quote from SmoothTraderFX:
The Media War
The People's Republic of China (PRC), led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), became concerned by the ability of Falun Gong practitioners to gather in large demonstrations almost instantaneously, and on July 20, 1999, the government began a nation-wide suppression of Falun Gong, referring to the practice as an "evil cult" spreading superstition to deceive people. To be noted that at the time there were said to be 100,000 practitioners in Beijing alone. The former leader of the CCP, Jiang Zemin, condemned the group using the state controlled media, stating a position the Chinese government promotes to this day. The founder of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi, has in the past denied that it is a religion or a cult, despite its using some language similar to Chinese Buddhism and Taoism. In recent years, however, Li has been using increasingly religious language to describe himself and his mission as well as the spiritual significance of Falun Gong. He claims that his practice of "Fa-rectification" encompasses the entire universe, purporting to include and go beyond all aspects of the Christian, Buddhist and Taoist religions [6]. In distinction to many tightly controlled religious cults, Falun Dafa practitioners are free to enter or leave the group as they please.
Since the persecution of the practice in China, the CCP claims that the practice has deviated its focus from engaging in spiritual cultivation to engaging in politics, basing their opinions on the existence of numerous websites disparate from, yet in support of, Falun Gong (such as Friends of Falun Gong). It is important to note that, due to an implication derived from its core principles, the teachings of Falun Gong are said to forbid any political involvement, and practitioners claim to have little interest in power or politics, the large number of political protests leading to the crackdown notwithstanding. However, Falun Gong's supporters, such as The Epoch Times, tend to be fiercely anti-communist and conservative, and Kangang Xu, a Falun Gong speaker, is the Chairman of the paper's board.
In China, the CCP has blocked access to the internet (and previously blocked this article, see History of Wikipedia), blocked information by burning and destroying Falun Gong's books and materials, and has therefore left the public susceptible to the systematic propaganda of China's state-run media. The general public of the PRC is unaware that the oppression against Falun Gong is violent, as it is not covered in state controlled media reports.
